Vyce

I'll try and go 5 - 5. To SMACKDOWN! 1. Randy Orton (heel) 2. Chris Jericho 3. Rhyno (heel, with a push) 4. Tajire 5. Snitsky (possibly to team with Heidenreich, or to feud with Taker) Additionally, RAW should give the following stars actual pushes: Shelton Benjamin, Matt Hardy, Christian. To RAW: 1. Charlie Haas (possibly as a heel, with a future Haas / Benjamin feud) 2. Kenzo Suzuki 3. Luther Reigns 4. Billy Kidman (Doesn't necessarily fit with cruisers anymore) 5. Big Show (More for him to do on RAW - possible Batista feud, could feud with Kane, HHH, etc.) Additionally, Smackdown should give pushes to the following people: Paul London, CCC (should he ever get healthy), Akio (cruiser push, or default tag team with Tajire). I would also suggest the idea that someone had last year: if you're going to bring in some new workers, hype them up beforehand and make them part of the draft. Make it similar to the pro sports, where you have "first round draft picks" being brought up from OVW or wherever they want to say they're coming from. This could be a good way to bring in fresh hires like Kazarian, or bring in returning workers like Ultimo Dragon, or to just bring up young workers like Johnny Nitro / Joey Matthews, and at the same time garner interest in them.

I don't trust those North Koreans......That missile looks a little too phallic for my tastes. I actually did, once. But she deserved it.

Unlike Jaxl, I pretty much just read Hearts in Atlantis for the Dark Tower tie-in "Low Men in Yellow Coats". Haven't read "Black House", but it's on my already obscenely long "To Read" list. "From a Buick 8" is just sad to read. Not in the sense that the material is sad, mind you, but that book, much like "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon", are just representative of King's post car-accident work, which has more often than not tended to be mediocre or just plain awful. I personally thought the book was be pretty pedestrian coming from the guy who's written many of modern horror literature's "classics".

I suddenly had the strangest mental image of Morgan Freeman curbing a young black youth.

All of thes politicians should be more concerned about social security, the war on terror, etc., about a million different things, rather than whose tit I may or may not see on my TV screen at night.

I think the point Vyce is emphasizing is that it is presumptuous as well as pompous for people who are not Americans to be telling Americans what our psyche is, regardless of what has been happening over the past 30 years. That was my point, yes. I was also hoping that someone, as I see Justice did (and perhaps you as well), would appreciate the absolutely delicious (so much so that I want to eat it with a spoon so that I can savor the last DROP) irony of RRRudo spending god knows how many pages now complaining about how self-righteous America / Americans is, when his remarks in this thread have been oh-so-wonderfully contemptuous (and more than a little jingoistic) in their conceit. Such chutzpah brings a tear to my eye, because it makes me believe that maybe the Canucks are more like us barbarian hordes in the States than we had previously thought, and that just makes me positively rosy with the swell of brotherly love in my chest. But seriously......we shouldn't bust Rudo's chops, because he got an almost glowing recommendation from C-Bacon, and that's reason enough to give him some of our sympathy. And I don't know how we got onto the religious stuff, but I ain't touching that one.

It's pointless to argue, Boon. I think it's CLEARLY been proven by this thread that the non-American OBVIOUSLY knows far more about the American psyche, on all of its myriad of levels, than an actual, you know, American citizen does. If you will excuse me, I'm going to go sit quietly in the corner and reflect upon my latest epiphany, that being that I am an awful person simply because I was unfortunate enough to be born on this side of Niagra Falls.

Man, ESPN just doesn't even TRY to be about sports anymore. I'm actually going to pass on this, since it's the MUCH inferior "Mike and the Bots", rather than you god and mine, Joel. If it ain't Joel, it ain't worth my time.

Must....resist urge to.......make snide remark....

I demand links. NOW. Dude, just do a Google image search.

How dare you. I am an everyman - my tastes and interests represent the tastes and interests of the larger community. Or should, at least.

Hmm, I wonder if this utterly stupid comment will get any backlash from the usual group, despite being quite obvious.....nah. Oh my. Do I REALLY need to whip out a dictionary to provide you with the definition of sarcasm? Do you even have ANY sort of discernible sense of humor?

And I'm right there with you. Which is a shame, because I'm the type of guy - who's not normally really into MMA - that they should be trying to win over with this show. But this shit is just a turn off to me. Bringing Leben back? Jump the Shark.

Completely agreed. I haven't seen an ending to a match so hideously botched in a good, long while. Again, kudos to Benoit for not going with the "planned" finish, because to do so would have made him look like a complete tool.

A new Cold War with China is almost certainly going to happen before this century is complete, provided they remain Communist. Which is likely, because even though they're rapidly becoming incredibly economically capitalist, their political machine is still a rabidly Communist regime with little chance of that changing any time soon. You know, I didn't really care that much about this missile defense thing until I read that sentence there. You've actually sold me on this missile defense thing.

Everyone has pretty much said what I'd have to say, but I thought I'd add: Jesus CHRIST, how fucked up was the ending to the Benoit / Hassan match? You have to figure the real ending was for Benoit to get clocked by the ringbell, but Hassan fucked even THAT up. Kudos to Benoit for kicking out of it, because it would have been even more of a fucking joke if he jobbed to it. And of course, JR, ever the company man, tried to sell it as Benoit headbutting the bell when it was blatantly apparent (as even Lawler mentioned) that he had not. Sweet Jesus, none of us are exactly against them trying to push new workers / stars, but can they at least push the ones who are, you know, READY for this shit? Who don't botch moves or seriously injure their opponents?

That's like a 60% dropoff compared to last week, so that's terrible news for the movie. No chance in hell it makes its $100 million back. No offense to Keanu, but he was completely wrong for the role. I think Constantine would've done much better had James Marsters been cast in the title role. Alienating the fans of the source material is NEVER a good idea. Are you fucking kidding me? The only person from the entire Buffy / Angel crew who you could say, with some degree of accuracy, is a box office draw is Sarah Michelle Gellar. Everyone else? Not a fucking chance. And I'm INCLUDING Joss Whedon in that group. And another thing: while I generally agree that it's not good to alienate the source material, it's not as if Hellblazer is a comic that has the same sort of following as Superman, or Batman, or Spider-Man, or the X-Men.....hell, it doesn't even have the same sort of following as Sandman does, and that comic has been finished for years. It's not as if changing the film adaptation around was going to piss off these legions of Hellblazer fans who otherwise would make the film a 100 million + success.

Huh. The Luger thing I can believe, especially given the amount of roids the guy's done in his time. Buff a chubby chaser? As for Sting into S&M....

PoP is a good game, but as Andrew said, it's relatively short. X-Men Legends is a fun action RPG, especially if you're an X-Men fan, but it's VERY linear (there's maybe 2 or 3 "sidequests" total) and that cuts down on the replay value. Psi-Ops, I don't know. I actually just bought that a few weeks back but I haven't gotten around to it yet (been too caught up playing Killzone, which despite some conflicting reviews, truly IS a great FPS). If you're up for RPGs, go with whomever suggested Kingdom Hearts. Exceptional synthesis of Square and Disney properties, and I can honestly say that it's one of my favorite RPGs of ALL time (probably my fave for the PS2 - Final Fantasy X is a bit overrated, IMO).

I'm with res. I'd actually buy the TNA PPV DVDs....hell, I'd buy all of them....but at 25 bucks a pop, PLUS shipping? Bitch, please. Inform me when they're no more than $20 at my local Best Buy. Till then, forget it.

I didn't even watch these, but I'm glad Freeman won, glad Foxx won, glad Swank won, VERY glad Blanchette won (since I have a thing for her), and I'm satisfied that Eastwood / M$B won. All in all, a pretty satisfying awards show. Not as awesome as LOTR taking the gold last year, but whatever.

Yeah, Turkmenistan has a pretty poor human rights record and an authoritarian government, too. I don't know how closely we associate with them, though. We are pretty buddy-buddy with their horribly oppressive Uzbek neighbors and the nearby dictatorship in Pakistan, though. The Pakistan situation vexes me. I'm pretty much convinced that we know where Osama bin Laden is, and that he's in Pakistan. Well.....when I say "know", I don't mean, we can point out EXACTLY where he is on a map. I don't think it's as simple as pointing to an X. But I think we probably have some good intel that he's in certain sections of Pakistan, but for whatever reason (likely that we're trying to keep on Pakistan's good side so they'll aid us in the war on terror) we don't press the issue with them.

Why the fuck would you be afraid that America would attack Canada? You're like our younger, hippy brother who lives upstate. We get pissed off because all you seem to want to do with your life is drink beer, smoke your pot, and espouse liberal quasi-European ideology while watching hockey. You annoy the hell out of us sometimes, and lately have been cock-blocking us on a few issues that we'd have liked your support on, but Canada is like the LAST country on our list of "nations we're gonna bomb just for the hell of it."

Don't forget Turkmenistan. Don't worry, they're all on the list for eventual democracy franchises.

Great, now I'm hungry for soul food.